We're happy to announce that AbFab3D has reached its 1.0 milestone goals. The codebase architecture changes have settled down, the unit tests are in place and its starting to feel like a usable codebase worthy of sharing.

AbFab3D is primarily a voxel library. It's a Java based library that can generate highly detailed models for 3D printing. If you've seen the API and asked yourself how you could generate 3D models for printing then this library is for you. Voxel graphics work like traditional 2D pixel graphics where you set the value of a pixel in 3 space(x,y,z). For a lot of geometry creation this is much easier then learning how to make triangle models. If you remember programming LOGO then you can appreciate the ease which you can make cool graphics this way.

Like most open source projects its a mixture of both. I started the project before joining Shapeways and then Shapeways took up stewardship of the project. We use it for several projects in the company and consider the code production worthy. That said I don't consider it just a Shapeways project. Anyone can join and I expect the codebase has applications far beyond what we do at Shapeways. It could be used in movies, gaming, medical analysis and visualizations. Most of the interesting research papers in the area are actually drawn from neuroscience and their analysis of MRI volume data. Another promising area for the codebase is in material science. They are applying very small geometric details to change the basic properties of matter. Some are using 3D printing currently others different manufacturing techniques.